Collecting Old Weird Paperbacks with Jerrold Coe

The AP Strange Show

This week Dr. Jerrold Coe, the writer and collector behind Paperbacks of the Gods, joins AP for a freewheeling discussion about the pulpy madness of paperback forteana. Jerrold's site is a treasure trove of quirky titles, replete with wildly weird cover designs and even weirder subjects, and this conversation is a celebration of such cultural oddities. They explore the prolific catalogues of story collectors such as Brad Steiger and Warren Smith, and the dynamics of the publishing world that delivered these tales to the wider culture. In his writing and in this conversation, Coe does an excellent job of tracing the history of various narratives and the authors who promoted them.

From T. Lobsang Rampa to Otto Binder, to sci-fi and less fortean paperback kitsch, the exploration of mass media paperbacks in the golden age of paranormal weirdness makes for a very fun and funny discussion.

Check out Coe's work here: https://paperbackgods.blogspot.com/
Also, subscribe to his YouTube for fortean documentary uploads at @jerrold_coe